


Locks

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 10:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur sings terrible songs in the shower, and Arthur and Francis have strong feelings about artistic movements.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locks

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of an old fic from my tumblr, which is 100% why the summary is so terrible. Accurate, but terrible.

Francis has a spare key to Arthur’s London flat – he pocketed it one night, sometime in the 80s, when Arthur was too drunk to remember Francis had escorted him home, grumbling sad nonsense about perverts and children who’d grown-up to not need him anymore into Francis’ shoulder as Francis had fished the key out of Arthur’s (tight) back-pocket. Seeing the future use of such a thing, he’d had a copy made for himself _long_ before Arthur had managed to wake up the following afternoon, all legs and pout and mournful dragging of his duvet around the flat on his bird-shoulders, bitching about his hangover. (Francis, who had magnanimously spent the night getting very little sleep on the uncomfortable sofa in Arthur’s living-room, had just put tea and painkillers in the other Nation’s hands, and shoved Arthur back to bed. He’d stuck a note to Arthur’s fridge insisting the _rosbif_ buy himself some more softer furniture before taking his leave, spare key a solid little weight in his _own_ pocket.)

Just _that_ bored and in dire need of entertainment Francis makes it his _duty_ to enliven the days of his dreariest neighbour – and, since Arthur has _never_ changed his locks, the key still fits, twists, admits the entry of _one_ to Arthur Kirkland’s flat, England put between four walls with a few strategic windows to air the poor stuffy creature every now and then. (When it’s not raining. Sometimes when it’s raining. Arthur sits and smokes on window-ledges in the middle of the night, rain or not, cold fingers and cold toes and mind somewhere else entirely. Francis wakes and sees him sometimes, the shadow against the dark dark sky – but he is one who walks through Paris just to see the changing lovers dance, so he rolls over and goes back to sleep.)

Having experience with this very particular corner of hell (and its ilk) Francis makes sure to close (and lock) the door again behind him – he has traumatic memories of an otherwise pleasurable tryst with Arthur’s brother to the north, where certain doors were not closed and certain _sheep_ decided to butt their way into the hallway where Francis _had_ been being happily taken against the wall. Flat or not, Francis is _not_ willing to have that happen again, so the front door to Arthur’s home is closed and locked quite firmly.

There’s the sound of running water from the bathroom near the living-room, the shower with the spray on the tiles. Arthur must be in a good mood as there’s soft humming to accompany it – wordless and slow but so terribly _90s._ If Francis closes his eyes vivid images of some of Arthur’s dreadful boy-bands of those days immediately spring to mind, wet t-shirts and _painfully_ soulful eyes.

He takes a seat on the relatively new sofa (if by ‘relatively’ one means ‘hideously out of fashion, but at least bought within the past decade’) – only to realise he is sitting on the television remote, uncomfortably wedged down the side between cushions and rest. Digging _that_ out yields some coinage, and by the time Arthur shifts songs in the shower, Francis has dug out a pen, two sealed condoms, a paperclip, and exactly three pounds and thirty six pence in small change – _and_ its rough equivalent in euros. (He debates taking the euros as a cleaning charge, but arranges the coins into a fleur-de-lys on the coffee table instead, nudging aside yesterday’s paper and a small pile of books.)

Arthur’s song is made less for swaying hips this time around and more for jumping feet, and oh, _oh,_ this time he’s chosen to add _words,_ voice clearer as the shower is switched off, pitched a shade higher than usual to settle into a woman’s range. _That_ alone would have Francis smiling – but a few lines in he has to lean back into the (now brushed-down) sofa cushions, shrug off his jacket and _grin,_ recognising the words floating out of the bathroom to the side.

“Gotta let me iiin, _hey, hey, heeey._ Let the fun begiiiiin, _heeeeeeey._ ” Arthur is a truly _exuberant_ singer when he’s alone, his voice echoing through the flat. Francis makes a note to set up cameras sometime, just to see if the other dances along like he does when he sings after a few too many drinks, and then sell the footage to his siblings. “I’m a wolf todaaay, _hey, hey, hey_! I’ll _huff_ , I’ll _puff_ ; I’ll huff, I’ll puff, I’ll blow you away!”

Bottles being shifted in the bathroom, Arthur moving into the more tuneful chorus.

“Say you _will,_ say you _won’t,_ say you’ll dooo what I don’t,” the bathroom door unlocks with a _click,_ Arthur stepping out, preoccupied with looking down and knotting his soft towel about his hips. Still singing, water-darkened hair clinging sleekly to the back of his neck, dripping droplets down his pale chest. A terribly nice view. Quite worth the visit. “Say you’re _true_ , say to _meee_ -”

“C’est la vie?” Francis offers mildly, and has the pleasure of watching Arthur’s head _jerk_ up to stare at him in five seconds of stunned horror before Arthur – wet hair, scant towel and all – _flees_ back into his bathroom, closing the door with a _slam._

_“GET THE BLOODY HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!”_

Despite the many centuries Francis has known his rival across the Channel, Arthur _still_ manages to find a new note of mortified hysteria every time Francis manages to scandalise and/or embarrass him.

It adds so much _sparkle_ to the torment.

“And miss your wonderful performance?” Francis doesn’t bother to hide the chuckle in his tone, making himself quite comfortable in his seat. “What happened to letting the fun begin?”

“Go take a long walk off a short pier, you _utter bas-”_

_“Come,_ ” says Francis, “must you be so rude to one admiring your many talents?”

_“You can admire my talents once I’ve put my_ foot _up your sodding backside.”_ More angry noises from the bathroom, the _fwip_ of a towel as Arthur no doubt dries himself off. “How long have you been in my house?”

“Long enough,” says Francis, and Arthur makes a sound like an angry cat. “I tidied your sofa.”

The bathroom door opens again, Arthur coming out wrapped in a much _longer_ towel, his hair towelled so furiously around his face it looks like a dandelion clock, blond petals giving way to fluff. “My sofa was perfectly acceptable.”

“For _you,_ perhaps -”

“I was hardly expecting to have _your_ fat French arse plonked upon it!”

“‘ _Fat?!’_ ” France squawks, sits up straight, “I will have you know that my beautiful behind is a _perfectly sculpted_ piece of the _finest art -_ ”

Arthur just scoffs at him. “Certainly, I will grant you that you did just sort of _fart_ out surrealism in the 20s -”

“And this from the one who shoved _vorticism_ in our faces?! Surrealism was a _cure_ to that hideous _blight -_ ”

“A _cure?_ ” Disbelief, Arthur’s hand tightening on the folds of his towel. “Surrealism was your children putting all their new mental problems on a bit of paper and pretending they were worth going _tadaa!_ about.”

“It was an interesting form of mass recuperation,” Francis insists, and Arthur scoffs again, taking a seat beside Francis on the sofa. Towelling or not he still seems damp, warm from his arguing and the shower before it. “To find and represent the very basics driving us all, the functioning of thought -”

“It was justification for getting piss-blind drunk, putting fancy-looking shit on a bit of paper, and calling whatever monstrosity you’d produced at the end of it _art._ ” Arthur looks pensive, resting his chin on his hands. “I can recall doing plenty enough of the first bit, but there was just…too _much,_ after the war, to try and get out, so I just -”

“Pickled your brain,” Francis says smartly, and raps his knuckles on Arthur’s nearby head. He earns a scowl for that, so he eases his fingers out of their fist, smoothing down the feathering _fluff_ of Arthur’s hair. Gentles his voice, since carrying a spare key to homes and hearts carries quite the weight of responsibility with it, “c’est la vie, cher. Do what you will with it. Love a little, lie a little -”

“Break into other people’s houses a little?” Francis just smiles, so Arthur sighs at him, shoulders sloping down. “I don’t have _nearly_ enough alcohol to put up with you.”

“So we shall buy some more.” The answer is simple enough. “And maybe, _perhaps_ , I shall have you singing another pretty tune for me before the day is done.”

“And maybe, _perhaps_ ,” Arthur says, rising to his feet again and heading for his bedroom, “I’ll be putting your corpse out for the bin-men to collect tomorrow. Stay _put,_ ” he adds firmly, looking back at Francis over his shoulder, and then disappears into his room, door shut very decisively behind him.

Francis sinks back into the sofa again, sprawled, very comfortable. At ease in the half-tided English clutter around him, in the peaceful silence of that flat.

Really, he can’t help himself.

“ _Rosbif,”_ he calls out, letting his voice carry through to the bedroom where Arthur is busy getting dressed, “you should sing again!”

“Fuck _off,_ frog!”

(Arthur changes his locks the following week. Francis ‘borrows’ another key for himself.)

**Author's Note:**

> The 80s saw a string of former British colonies (Canada, Australia and New Zealand to name a few) gaining official independence.  
> [C’est la Vie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvjLgjtJKsc) – yes, I’m aware it’s an Irish band, but the song was incredibly popular in the UK  
> [Surrealism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism)  
> [Vorticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticism)
> 
> I have no idea how these two went from B*witched to arguing about artistic movements and the Great War, I really don’t.


End file.
